Birders

... feral cats, not so much. They are filling the niche that we opened up when we killed of bobcats, weasels, and the rest of the small predators. Those ferals get a lot of mice and tree rats (who become attic rats - be careful what you lean against your house - I learned the hard way), grubs ( my feral cats love those protein balls), snakes, etc.

I sold an MG midget to a friend who had no indoor storage. Mice will eat English wiring with gusto, so I suggested mouse poison. He said absolutely not. I asked why not and he said, "It'll poison the owls when they get a poisoned but still alive mouse."

I believe in managed feral colonies. Nature abhors a vacuum. Our ferals are healthy, fixed and fed. I had one who would catch a very occasional dove, but the other species were too fast for her. We feed the birds, too.

I really, really miss the butterflies, especially the Monarchs that used to come thru here every year until they didn't any more five or so years before Covid. Every two or three years, I'll see one or two lightening bugs. When I lived near the reservation in Nebraska, where the white farmers tilled: no lightening bugs. On the res - MILLIONS of lightening bugs like how it was in Cleveland as a child in the fifties, before we started treating our lawns as a field of crops.

We are losing a lot of what made life so sweet decades ago.